THE COUNTY SEAL

You Can Do Better? Show Us.

It's a lapel pin, a sticker at your local liquor store, a decal on the lifeguards' safety-yellow pickups. It's the official Los Angeles County seal, and earlier this year it became a symbol of strife. Spurred by the American Civil Liberties Union's threat of a lawsuit, the Board of Supervisors ordered up a new design and narrowly approved it last week. Gone are the cross, the goddess and the oil derricks of Signal Hill. Pearlette, the prize-winning dairy cow, survived the slaughter. Nevertheless, the grumbling over the design continues.

Think you can do better? Send your design to Sunday Opinion, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or fax to (213) 237-7968. Don't expect to find the winner on a county lapel or your property tax bill. But it could appear in the pages of Opinion. The deadline is Sept. 30.